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Noctis pointed up between the branches at the night sky. "What's that one called?"
Nyx squinted, trying to track the prince's wavering finger and guess what the sky looked like without the distortion of the wall.
"Below Leviathan's harp, and to the left," Noctis added. There was a branch in the way so Nyx couldn't see how much of the sky was visible. He didn't remember any particularly bright stars there until the Spindle, but if he could just get a better look--
"Ow!" "Uh!"
Even having just nearly fallen into the man's lap, Cor's face was still incredibly distracting from this close. The Prince's attempts at concealing his giggling was even less effective than Nyx's attempts at recovering his balance or dignity. Cor's hand up was appreciated, even if the warmth of it through Nyx's nondescript "disguise" was even more distracting than his face had been and lingered even longer.
"I, uh..." Nyx resettled himself into the crook of a different branch of the drouxrusos and stared resolutely at the sky. Maybe the darkness of the Imperial gardens concealed his blush. And maybe the Captain would take pity on him and take him off dawn Gate Duty tomorrow.
"Lover's folly," Cor said firmly, and Nyx nearly jumped off his perch again. "It's a variable star, sometimes brighter and sometime's dimmer. Hence the name."
Right. They were supposed to be naming the stars for Prince Noctis. Not indulging Nyx's growing crush on Cor Leonis - which was supposed to be shrinking after all this time working together.
"Fool's Hope," Nyx said, and his voice even managed to sound normal, which was fantastic. "It's not actually changing brightness, it just is so close to the horizon most of the time that it gets covered pretty easily by heat haze or clouds." Should he risk it? Well, why change his MO now? "If you spent less time blinded by the Wall you'd realize that the stars don't actually change."
He threw a smirk in the direction of Cor, bolstered by knowing the Prince enjoyed it when they bickered like this. The slap he got to his side was more than worth it, and if the hand Nyx kept over the spot was for more than just nursing the "injury", well...the stars were always great at keeping secrets.